Alright, so we all know I loved the first book in the Crescent City series. I got it for Christmas and lived in that book for three days, so it should come as no surprise that I picked up the second book in the series, House of Sky and Breath.
Now, I don’t give spoilers in my reviews because I don’t like being given spoilers myself, so I’m going to hedge the line a little here and say it does end on a cliffhanger. I don’t mind cliffhangers occasionally, I really don’t, but given the length of these two books I wouldn’t have made that choice. There comes a point when you’ve crossed a threshold of several thousands of words and people deserve a HFN ending so they can sleep better at night. And I am still quite nervous about how this cliffhanger came about, but I can’t get too much into the reasons why without shoving spoilers at people. Suffice, I will walk into the third book with no small amount of trepidation.
However, I understand this is my personal opinion and thus it doesn’t count for much beyond my preferences when I’m reading, so don’t let it deter you from reading the book.
This book comes with a STRONG CONTENT WARNING for those of you with young adults who like to read. Admittedly, there were some conversations between the romantic characters that left me feeling awkward, but I am also a blushy-conservative-prude. Which, hey, my husband finds endearing and really he’s the only one who matters when it come to those sorts of conversations. I only mention it as a warning to those of you who might be like me. Reading is cool in that you can glaze over the spots that make you blush a lot.
For the plot of the novel… There is quite a lot of it.
I did enjoy this book, but it felt like we were keeping a breakneck pace and there just wasn’t enough room for Bryce and her companions to actually, truly, sit down and process everything that had happened in the first book. What made me fall in love with this author was the SECOND book of Court of Thorns and Roses series, when her main character had to sit down and actually deal with what she had done in the first novel. Trauma wasn’t just shouldered, it was confronted and eventually overcome. This wasn’t the case in House of Sky and Breath.
Sure, we’re told that the two main characters cried on each others shoulders, but you don’t really get to feel it.
AJMaguire 